by Perry Rhodan
"Out with you traitors!" Etztak shouted in a cracking voice. "Get them out of here and put them back in their cell!"
The guard wanted to take them back but Etztak roared: "You stay here!" and aimed his gun at him. "Gaxtek and Hor, you take them back!"
Kitai Ishibashi had used the little time he had to sway the patriarch of the Etztak clan and cause Gaxtek and Hor to lead them back to the same cell from which they had been shoved out.
John Marshall sensed the complications. He listened to Etztak's thoughts and was overcome by the most
serious misgivings. As soon as they had returned to their cell and the magnetic locks had snapped shut,
he warned his friends. Kitai Ishibashi turned pale and whispered: "You mean Etztak will put the guard through the brain analyzer?"
Tako Kakuta spoke up: "John, tell me quickly where the guard is now!"
Marshall concentrated intensely. Nobody in the cell dared breathe loudly. Could he locate him again? Why did it take so long? Finally Marshall lifted his face, which was bathed in perspiration. His eyes had lost their shine. "He's being carried off in the custody of six men in an armored car."
"Where is he, Marshall?" Tako Kakuta asked, ready to jump off. The telepath shook his head dejectedly. "I receive many streams of thought but each one spells death for you if you jump in, Tako. The six men who are taking our guard to the brain analyzer keep their fingers on the trigger. I can feel it, they'll squeeze..."
"Where is he?" the frail Japanese repeated his question in a cool, determined tone. Marshall informed him that one of the henchmen was thinking about the huge dock where the vehicle passed by.
There were only three mutants left in the cell. Tako Kakuta, the teleporter, had leaped to an uncertain fate after the guard who was bound to reveal their secret in the brain analyzer.
• • •
Etztak and the other traders had already left the interrogation room before the guard was led away to the brain-analyzer. He took a car and raced to Goszul. Without waiting to be announced he rushed in and broke up a meeting but Etztak cared little about it. He burst out with the ardor of a young man in the knowledge that Perry Rhodan presented a peril which could hardly be underestimated. He had learned it from bitter experience.
When Etztak saw Goszul grinning superciliously he suddenly regained his calm. Abruptly he broke off his report. "You don't believe me yet?" he asked coldly.
"No more than I believe in the world of Eternal Life," Goszul replied. "Ever since you met Rhodan you can't think straight any more, Etztak. You've never recovered from that shock. I can think straight but I've no objection if you want to use the brain-analyzer to find out what the guard knows."
The trader was utterly callous and completely unmoved by the fact that the guard would be turned into an idiot by the treatment of the brain prober. Suddenly the door was flung open. Gaxtek was on the threshold, shouting excitedly: "One of the escorts has killed the guard!"
"This is the work of Rhodan!" Etztak called out, perhaps unknowingly setting the course of future events.
Patriarch Goszul laughed uproariously and slapped bis belly.
• • •
Tako Kakuta, the slight Japanese teleporter, was back in the cell from which he had silently vanished 15 minutes earlier. He appeared at the same spot where he had left before, His childlike face with the bulging forehead looked small and exhausted. He kept wiping the sweat from his brow and was breathing rapidly.
His friends waited with superhuman patience for hi report. Only Marshall knew already what had transpired but he remained silent. Then Tako Kakuta said in a toneless voice: "He's dead. They stood around him when I arrived at the vehicle and a raygun went off at the moment I disappeared again."
He didn't go on to tell them about the half dozen hazardous jumps he had performed while searching for the armored car. He thought this was immaterial. Neither did he relate to them that he had triggered an alarm his second jump when he landed on the transparent roof of the spaceship dock.
His friends looked at him quietly. They could explain themselves why one of the six henchmen had blasted his raygun. All of them well remembered the shock when the teleporter appeared for the first time like a phantom from nowhere.
In the middle of the night Marshall suddenly woke up. He was startled by strange thought impulses. Silent cries of an anguished soul, so confused that it took him some time to decipher them. Then he finally realized from whence the impulses originated. In the adjacent cell a Goszul who had been condemned to death despaired.
Marshall woke up his friends and talked to them about the impressions he had received. As far as the mutants had been able to glean Goszul's Planet was a pitiful world of slaves. The traders mercilessly oppressed a peaceful and good-natured people. "Descendants of the Arkonides?" Kitai Ishibashi exclaimed in astonishment. "Do these Goszuls also belong to the race of the Arkonides?"
His question was not strange at all. Long before the sinking of Atlantis the Arkonides had come to Earth like Gods and were never seen again. Nonetheless the legend had lived on in the stories of all people. Here on Goszul's Planet fate must have chosen a similar course and this peaceful race of brothers from the same race had been subjected to serfdom.
"These tyrannical Springer!" Tama Yokida gnashed his teeth while he continued listening to Marshall's whispering.
The Goszuls had retrogressed to a more primitive state. Their science and technology were comparable to that on Earth in the 17th century. They believed they saw Gods when patriarch Goszul and his clan landed among them. But the Springers saw only a world to be exploited—the most profitable business of their lives. Goszul took possession of the second planet of the sun 121-Tatlira. The harmless population was forced into slavery by hypno-training and the men were deported to a place where he built his power centrum with the help of the mighty trader organization.
The chattel in the next cell had lost his mind in his agony. His mental breakdown had cracked the hypnoblock and each time he experienced a sane moment and recognized the hopelessness of his situation, he remembered what the traders had done to him and his brothers. The breathlessly listening mutants were distracted by the noise of loud steps. Three guards marched along the corridor, passed their cell and stopped next door.
Kakuta, Ishibashi and Yokida could hear the magnetic locks spring open and the door swing back and then they recoiled in horror. Marshall saw the guard raising his raygun and aiming at the condemned man. He shared the agony of the slave.
Then there was nothing!
John Marshall had failed to hear anything but Ishibashi, Yokida and Kakuta had picked up the typical sound of the hissing beam.
• • •
Patriarch Goszul was not the incompetent fool for which Etztak had gradually come to take him. Goszul had ordered an investigation of the shooting which had occurred when the guard was taken to the brain analyzer. Sharer, a member of his clan, gave him the report.
The patriarch listened silently: He had not forgotten Etztak's exclamation: "This is the work of Rhodan!" He didn't underestimate this man who lived in a small far away world in a half-deserted branch of the Galaxy, a place called Terra. Now he asked his first question: "Who besides the nitwit that killed the guard has seen that shadow?"
"Nobody! I've queried each one intensively. But the man standing next to the one firing the fatal shot claims to have felt a blow on his back." Despite his age Goszul was a man with remarkable mental faculties. He always unerringly picked the most important detail out of a set of complicated facts. And so he insisted in this ease: "I want to hear from you, Sharer, the exact words the man told you."
Sharer briefly reflected. "'I saw Plugg shoot and at the same moment a fist hit my back. Plugg couldn't have pushed against me because he swayed and shot while he was off balance. Lusud on my left side hadn't yet understood what was happening. He stood completely still.' This is the precise text of his statement, Patriarch Goszul."
"And now Plugg's accoun
t, Sharer, also word for word!"
"He said: 'I was surprised by an attack. A man had jumped on my back and tried to strangle me with his left hand. I can still feel on my neck where he pressed me with his thumb. The jolt caused me to lose my balance and I stumbled. While staggering I must have triggered the raygun and shot the guard. Almost immediately the strangling hand and the man on my back were gone. There was nothing... nothing at all...'"
"Did Plugg show you where the thumb was pressed against his neck?"
Sharer hastened to demonstrate where Plugg claimed to have been choked by a thumb. The Patriarch mulled over the testimony for a minute and then asked to be connected with the prison. "The warden!" he demanded.
The guard officer answered at once.
Goszul spoke crisply into the mike: "Make an inspection of Levtan's crew and take a count to check that each prisoner is present. Post two guards in front of each cell where they're kept. Report to me at once if one or more men are missing!"
He turned back to Sharer, when the loudspeaker clicked and the picture screen started to flicker. It was the spaceport calling. The pinched face of a man became visible. "Ottek speaking!" said the man. "We've finished the search of the LEV XIV. Nothing of importance was found except a few pieces of equipment which must have been brought in from that planet Earth or Venus..."
"And you call that 'nothing was found!'" Goszul bellowed. "Is there nobody left in our clan on whom I can still depend? I want you to take all objects which originated on Earth or Venus to the laboratory for a thorough test! Do you hear me? And where are those documents Levtan is constantly talking about, the proof of his absurd statements about Rhodan's huge installations and spaceships on Venus? Did you find that, Ottek?"
"We were unable to locate any reference to it, Patriarch Goszul," the ugly man said meekly and cringed.
"Search everything again with rays. I must have proof in my hands when the Great Conclave convenes. Levtan's documents must be on the LEV XIV. If you don't find them you can take the next ship to the mines! Don't forget it!" Goszul grinned viciously and turned the telecom off.
"Sharer, I want to be alone! Leave me!"
"When Goszul was left alone with his troubles, he cursed Rhodan with so much hate that Etztak would have delightedly slapped his old friend Goszul on the shoulder if he could only have heard him.
• • •
The prison door behind which Rhodan's mutants were confined flew open. They were menaced by five rayguns as they sleepily rose and blinked into the light. A man loudly counted to four and another one behind him said: "That's right! That completes it."
The door was banged shut again and the magnetic locks were secured. Two guards remained at the door and the others went on. Rhodan's taskforce exchanged glances. They had easily guessed the reason for the control check. It was the reaction to the death of the guard on his way to the brain analyzer.
"The traders' suspicion has been aroused," Marshall whispered. "One more incident they don't know how to explain is all it'll take to get wise to the idea that there must be mutants among the LEV's crew."
• • •
Etztak sought out the company of the patriarch Gaxtek, the trader who had been cheated many years ago of the reward of his labor by Levtan. Gaxtek's son was Etztak's most ardent supporter. He had not forgotten the murderous look in Levtan's eyes and was constantly reminded that the Gaxtek clan would be just as rich as Etztak's if they had not been victimized by a ruthless member of their own people.
Etztak countered all remonstrations. "Perry Rhodan is strong but he has weaknesses. I can't be dissuaded that he would have attacked us long ago if he weren't deterred by some crucial drawback. Somewhere he's weak... but weak men can also be dangerous. They try to compensate for their weakness with cunning. And Levtan serves Rhodan's stratagem. Could you think of a better opportunity to eliminate all Galactic traders with one stroke than the Great Conclave? Tell me, Gaxtek, what would you do in Rhodan's place?"
• • •
In his overwhelming hatred for Perry Rhodan, Etztak underestimated the patriarch Goszul. Goszul had already pondered and answered the same question. He took appropriate measures. More than 50 messengers were dispatched to the patriarchs of the clans and the spaceport had been put on alert.
Not one of the patriarchs slept the night before the Great Conclave. The destroyer formations of the traders and their few battleships raced with whining engines along the take-off lanes into the clear night sky.
But Goszul was not alone concerned with an attack from outer space. He also considered the possibility of sabotage in the Great Conclave. Like Etztak he had tried to put himself in Rhodan's place and had come to the same conclusion that Rhodan's armor must have a serious chink.
However Goszul didn't wrack his brain trying to find the weakness. He marked the spot with an X and figured in his calculations that this unknown X represented a critical danger for him.
The agitation in his waiting room kept growing irresistibly. He could hear Sharer talking excitedly. The telecom next to his armchair buzzed and the commander of the heavy rocket installations reported that all positions were manned and ready to fire. Goszul listened silently to his report and when his picture faded away he snarled a name: Perry Rhodan.
He could not remember that there had ever been a time in the history of the Galactic traders when the acts of an enemy had necessitated a convocation of the Great Conclave.
Sharer entered. "All clans have been notified. Each patriarch and each observer to the Great Conclave will be identified by name through members of two other clans before admittance to the assembly hall."
Goszul was struck by an idea. "I want to set the opening of the Great Conclave two hours earlier! Sharer, arrange for the messengers to advise the patriarchs of the change only at last minute!"
After Sharer had left he couldn't get rid of a nagging feeling and wished that the Great Conclave were already over. Once more he cursed Perry Rhodan's name.
7/ DRAMA ON GOSZUL
The word was repeated four times on the Stardust II and the three cruisers. They had waited in vain for hours for a prearranged signal from the task force but it failed to come through. Rhodan's fleet was standing by more than 10 million miles away—four tiny craft in infinite space with extremely delicate hyper-sensors which had just registered the start of a great number of spaceships on Goszul's Planet
"It looks pretty bad," Bell said softly so that only Perry Rhodan could hear.
They were joined by the Arkonide scientist Khrest. "At the risk of repeating myself," he began, "it's getting very hard for me to believe that our mutants were successful. The alarm on the planet speaks for itself."
Perry Rhodan slowly rose from the pilot seat. As he stood before the Arkonide, who was a head taller than he, there was nevertheless an amazing-resemblance for two people of different races.
"I've faith in the ability of my men," Rhodan replied quietly. "And I assume that the positronic brain gives them a good chance. Would you like to take a look at the prognosis with me, Khrest?"
Meanwhile the rangefinder continually supplied new data. The battlefleet of the traders circled the planet from which it had started in ever increasing trajectories. They searched systematically through space, a worrisome fact which was pointed out by Khrest on their way to the positron.
"I know!" Rhodan answered.
"They'll soon obtain our bearings the same way we've observed their take-off," Khrest warned with great urgency.
"We've already retreated after the traders' fleet was launched." Perry's answer contained a gentle rebuke. "I don't want to endanger the four men unnecessarily."
Khrest stared at him with astonishment. Once again he couldn't help admiring the near perfection of this Earthling. He didn't disregard the fact that Rhodan had acquired the wealth of Arkonide knowledge through him but neither was he inclined to overestimate it. In the final analysis it solely depended on the person whether he could apply his knowledge or not P
erry Rhodan made such skilful use of these revelations that the Arkonide was proud of him.
Ron stated the chances for success of the mutant team in cold figures.
"This is really..."
"...very good, isn't it?" Perry interrupted. "The brain machine on Venus has computed the chances to be >0.4 and..."
Khrest flared up, fire in his eyes: "And with a probability for success of only 0.4% you have risked the lives of four men?"
Words failed Khrest when Rhodan nodded.
"Yes!" said Perry Rhodan and the firm 'Yes' taught Khrest an astonishing truth that was further driven home by the remainder of Rhodan's answer: "Success chances 0.4% plus Man! Khrest, we're not like the Arkonides who are content to spend their waking hours with their eyes fixed on a dream machine. That's the simple reason why the chances of our mutant team are so considerably greater. 'Plus Man' is an ingredient which cannot be evaluated by the big positronic brain on Venus... because it was built by Arkonides!"
The stern voice of the rangefinder officer broke in: "Three destroyers veered away from the Springers' formation and seem to be headed toward us..."
"Increase acceleration by five!" Rhodan quickly called to Bell. "Did the Springers find our position?"
The unanswered question hung heavy in the command center.
• • •
"I'll go and take a look outside," Tako Kakuta had said a few minutes earlier. "I must know what's going on. Something seems to have gone awry. I'll be back in 15 minutes."
Nobody objected and the teleporter disappeared. He landed in a daring leap on the spaceport. The place was lavishly lit up brighter than day. Tako Kakuta closed his eyes in the blinding light and leaped to the outer limits of the spaceport. Once he was outside the flood of light he took time to survey the landing field.
